A COMPLEX NETWORK APPROACH TO AVIATION ACCIDENT ANALYSIS

摘要

In aviation, even relatively simple tasks comprise numerous human and non-human agents, dispersed geographically and temporally, with emergent properties which are often difficult to predict. As such, aviation can be thought of as a complex system, and analyzing accidents and incidents in this domain requires a complex approach to fully understand the integration of multi-causal, multi-linear and multi-agent accident sequences. The Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork methodology (EAST; Stanton et al, 2005) offers such an approach, but has not yet been used in accident analysis. In the present paper, EAST is applied to a well known aviation accident case study. Communication between agents in the network is highlighted as a central theme of accident causation and the potential for finding key agents through such network models and sequences is investigated. Ultimately, this work aims to provide a new model which can highlight key factors distinguishing accidents and incidents from normal operations.